While the Italian films of the crowd popularized by films like “The Godfather” seem to be worlds far from the South Korean programs or the K-Dramas, there is a series that brings together these disparate cultures. The Korean series of 2021 “Vincenzo” follows Park Joo-Hyung (Song Jong-Ki), an adopted which is raised by a mafia boss in the Italian mafia under the name of Vincenzo Cassano. A criminal drama with an underlying current of black humor, “Vincenzo” is a star of the many thrillers inspired by the crowd on television. However, more than distinguishing itself with its intercultural premise, the series is a solidly designed story that uses both K-Drama and Mob cinema fans.
Having grown up as the adopted son of an Italian powerful mafioso, Vincenzo Cassano hires the jealousy of his adoptive brother Paolo (Salvatore Alfano). The series begins with Paolo by taking control of the crowd after the death of his father, which encouraged Vincenzo to flee to Seoul before Paolo kills him. While acclimating to life in Korea, Vincenzo notes that a local pharmaceutical company, Babel Group, is just as vicious as the outfits of the organized crime it encountered in Italy. Over time, while trying to recover a hiding place hidden from gold ingots from a property now owned in Babel, the illegal past of Vincenzo begins to catch him.
And of course, this configuration seems quite open and Shut at first glance, but where “Vincenzo” excels, it is in its execution.
Which makes Vincenzo a perfect vision for godfather fans
Although Vincenzo is a clear Korean inheritance man, he approaches the challenges he faces Seoul with a established crowd mentality. This is obvious with the way he analyzes a given situation and the strategies he uses to face his opponents, inside and outside the Babel group. Although it gives the series a lot of its charm, things are not as clear as they initially seem, with “Vincenzo” containing some of the best twists and turns of the K-Drama intrigue in recent memory. Without spoiling what is going on exactly, even the most hardcore crime moviegoers will not see some of these curve balls to come, keeping them on their guard.
At a wider level, “Vincenzo” transparently mixes many familiar tropes of Mafia films with K-Dramas to do something that stands proudly alone. The contradictory presence of unscrupulous societies is common in the K-Dramas, which juxtaposes surprisingly naturally to the typical film antagonists. This organic network makes the spectacle easily accessible to new arrivals in K-Dramas as a fantastic bridge on Korean television. And, of course, all the familiar characteristics of K-Dramas crime and crowd stories are actually in full exposure.
A captivating mixture of crime genres with a unique vision of the Italian crowd, “Vincenzo” is available to broadcast as part of the increasing Netflix K-Dramas library.
